This quote from Axa on the What Progress Have You Made? thread inspires this one:
I have learned I must say No the moment the confusion appears in a relationship
Somehow that simple line hit me hard, and I've been thinking about why. I think that learning to find and respect my own voice, and USE it to speak up against mistreatment (whether by an Nish person or anyone else) is part of the learning. But I think learning to direct my voice outward is one part of the battle.
The other part, which I overlooked for a long time and am just beginning to recognize may be the most important, is to HEAR my inner voice. Perhaps what I'm talking about is intuition, inner wisdom, gut sense, something like that.
IOW, when I feel
confused in a dialogue with someone and it's not because of the surface subject matter...heads up! Something is going on beneath the surface (perhaps in me as well as the other, or perhaps them, or perhaps just me). I think we are all born with a kind of innate sensitivity to signals, just as animals are. Metaphorically, our noses quiver, our ears prick, we hunch down, leap up, take off at a run. Or...we yawn, relax, roll over, close our eyes, leap up to play, yip in joy. (Sorry if I'm taking the animal analogy too far!)
I think in being raised by a very Nish mother and subsequently falling in "love" (glugg, gasp, enmeshed gurgle noises) with N men...I trained myself to ignore so many natural noises my animal self was voicing to take care of me.
So it seems to me a big part of my growth work now is to learn to listen to the deepest instincts I have, because I've been trained to ignore those natural senses that if left to do their natural work, would ENSURE that I'm happy, healthy, at peace, ready for life, present, self-protective and unhesitant about retreating from danger. Toward the good and life-sustaining, away from the bad.
(Not that choices, situations and people are that simply black or white, but that my instincts if I were hearing my animal voice...would lead me into better and healthier ones, and away from toxic ones.)
I don't know that I'm expressing any new insight but it all felt fresh to me when I read Axa's word
confusion.
Does this make sense to anybody? Hope it's not confusing!
Hops